And hoped against hope that this wonderful moment would bind them together and begin to repair all that had been damaged between them.
Chapter Four
Colin pulled his shirt over his head and stared down at his sleeping wife as he carefully rebuttoned it and shoved the tails into the waist of his trousers. Jane had slipped into sleep not long after they made love, and now she was sprawled naked across his bed, blonde hair tangled around her back and shoulders, a small smile on her beautiful face.
He wanted nothing more than to slide back into bed with her, curl his body around her and make love to her until she woke.
But passions had cooled. Reason had returned. And so had memory. Claiming Jane was one thing. Slipping into any kind of foolish belief that making love could fix all that was broken between them was quite another. He knew Jane’s character, after all. He couldn’t forget that fact.
He frowned as he pulled his jacket on. Jane was untrue, and yet her body had felt tight as a virgin’s. Almost as if she had not had a man inside of her since he last took her on the afternoon of their wedding. Of course, none of his spies in Applegate had ever told him she had a lover, but he’d never believed that meant shedidn’t. Only that she was smart enough not to get caught at it.
He pinched his lips and grabbed for a blanket that rested on the back of a chair in his chamber. Gently he pulled it up over her, took one last look at her sleeping frame, and left the room.
It was foolish to muse too much on these things. Like he was looking for a way to absolve her of her past sins. Like he was searching for something that would make their marriage whole again.
That something didn’t exist. Passions might, and there was a place for them, as well as for her presence in his home to stop any gossip that might arise from her being back in London. But beyond that…
“There is no going back,” he murmured as he walked down the hallway to his office. “And I must never forget that ever again.”
Jane opened her eyes, and for a moment she had no idea where she was. Early evening light was filtering through the windows of the chamber where she lay on a comfortable bed, but it wasn’t her room in Applegate or at her sister’s. It was…
It came back to her in a rush, and she sat up. She was in Colin’s room. Colin’s bed. Because Colin had taken her there.
But Colin was gone.
She frowned. Slowly, she rose and saw the evidence of the passion between them in the way her clothing was still strewn about his otherwise spotless room. His clothing was gone.
So he had abandoned her. Again.
She caught her chemise and pulled it over her head before she rang the bell at the door. The servant who answered told Jane she would fetch her maid, and Jane laid out her things on his bed as she waited for help.
Soon enough, Laura arrived. The girl seemed surprised to find Jane in the viscount’s chamber, but she said nothing as she helped her dress and fixed her hair from its tangled reminder of Colin’s fingers raking through the locks.
Once Laura had gone, Jane looked at herself in the mirror. She looked the same as she had that morning. And yet she felt so very different. Because Colin had claimed her, with a desperate, heated passion she’d long ago convinced herself didn’t exist.
But if it still did, perhaps other things also existed. She sighed and smoothed her gown before she left the room and went downstairs to find her husband. A footman was standing at the bottom of the stairs, and she smiled at him.
“Do you know where Lord Wharton is?”
The man shifted. “His office, I believe, my lady. But he doesn’t like to be disturbed before supper.”
She waved off his admonishment and moved down the hall. She’d never had a chance to truly call this house a home, and that fact became stark when she could not find the study. In the end, it was the light coming from under the door that led her there. She stood for a moment to calm herself before she entered the chamber.
He was bent over his desk when she stepped inside, scribbling furiously. He didn’t look up, but his face scrunched into a scowl. “Is my order not to be disturbed so very hard to follow?” he snapped.
She arched a brow as she shut the door. “I wasn’t certain if it applied to me.”
His gaze jerked up and his hand stilled in its writing. He stared at her, almost as if he had forgotten she resided in his house, then slowly rose.
“It applies to everyone. The time before supper is when I get my best work done,” he said, but there was no cruelty to his tone.
“And what are you working on?” she asked. She knew from the past that he took his position in the House of Lords very seriously. More seriously than any gentleman she’d ever known. His passionate dedication to his place there had been one of the many things that drew her to him what seemed like a lifetime ago.
His mouth pinched and the walls came up between them. “Nothing you would be interested in, I’m sure,” he said. “Is there something you need?”
She flinched at his suddenly icy demeanor. It seemed nothing had changed after all, and she felt herself filled with disappointment at the jab of that pointed truth.
But she also felt something else. Anger.
